life today

On a more down to earth side. Everything is Ok.
I am at the rig working. Of course the weather is beautiful.

Life is pretty unadventurous!
The only event worth mentioning is me walking into my office after lunch today and finding the national "night geologist" sitting at my laptop...in day time when he is off..at my laptop...

Let's just say that I was not happy.

All the spying, conniving etc among all the Algerian is getting to be a bit much!

If fish weren't so hot, they wouldn't have to swim

From the Muqaddimah

“Students often happen to accept and transmit absurd information that, in turn, is believed on their authority. Al-Mas’udi, for instance, reports such a story about Alexander. Sea monsters prevented Alexander from building Alexandria. He took a wooden container in which a glass box was inserted, and dived in it to the bottom of the sea. There he drew pictures of the devilish monsters he saw. He then had metal effigies of the animals made and set them up opposite the place where building was going on. When the monsters came out and saw the effigies, they fled….
It is a long story made up of nonsensical elements which are absurd for various reasons”

And then he lists the reasons, here are two:

"Djins are not known to have specific forms and effigies. They are able to take various forms."

The next one I explain (it is very long): A man would not be able to dive this way and live because people have to breath cold air…yes COLD air. And in fact he explains that this is the same for fish and this is why when out of the water, without the cooling effect of the water, they die….they cannot breath the warm air outside the water.

All this to say that even when you have a good idea you can really mess it up by explaining how it came about. And even when you are aware of a possible problem you may fall right into it.

All roads lead to Shymkent

I just finished the introduction to The Muqaddimah and at the very end it says: “If you cannot travel to Samarqand, you can read the Muqaddimah. In it you will discover the marvel of a civilizational vision that exceeds both time and space, precisely because it is so attentive to each.".

Of course I had to check where Samarqant is….would you believe it, it is in Uzbekistan! I heard so much about the culture of Uzbekistan when I was in Kaz…Also I always use to go to this little uzbek restaurant in Atyrau where they had the best food. Uzbekistan food is known all over the FSU as being the best. And the Uzbek culture there is known as being one of the oldest culture in the world.

Turns out that Samarqant is roughly the same age than Rome (so maybe not the oldest city in the world) and was the capital city of Tamerlane…

How did I get to Tamerlane?

Also in the introduction of The Muqaddimah. Apparently Ibn Khaldun spend quite a bit of time with him, etc etc etc.

Here is the thing about Tamerlane (the guy in the picture):

Tamerlane (1336-1405), Turkmen Mongol conqueror, who established an empire extending from India to the Mediterranean Sea. The name Tamerlane, a European corruption of Timur Lang ("Timur the Lame") was given to him because his left side was partially disabled. Tamerlane was born April 10, 1336, at Kesh in Transoxiana (present-day Shakhrisyabz, Uzbekistan), and rose to prominence in the service of the Jagataid khan Tughluq Timur. Between 1364 and 1370 he won control of Transoxiana, and in the latter year declared the restoration of the empire of Genghis Khan, whom he falsely claimed as his ancestor. By 1394 he had conquered Iran, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Georgia. In 1389-95 he fought and weakened the Khanate of the Golden Horde. In 1398 Tamerlane invaded India, where he captured Delhi and massacred its inhabitants. In 1401 he took Syria from the Mamelukes, and the following year defeated the Ottoman sultan Bayazid I. Tamerlane died on February 18, 1405, near Shymkent (in present-day Kazakstan) while leading an expedition against China, and was buried in Samarqand, his capital city. His mausoleum, the Gur-e Amir, is one of Samarqand's great architectural monuments. Although he was notorious for his cruelty in war and for the many atrocities committed by his armies, Tamerlane was also a lover of scholarship and the arts. His dynasty, the Timurids, which ruled Transoxiana and Iran until the early 16th century, was noted for its patronage of Turkish and Persian literature. One of his descendants, Babur, founded the Mughal dynasty of India in 1526. He is the protagonist of Christopher Marlowe's dramatic epic, Tamburlaine the Great (1590). Source: Microsoft Encarta 97

Busy guy! (more here: http://www.silk-road.com/artl/timur.shtml)

Did you noticed “Tamerlane died on February 18, 1405, near Shymkent (in present-day Kazakstan)” …I’ve been to Shymkent and boy oh boy, I would say that now a days the most likely cause of death in Shymkent would be chemical poisoning from all the crap they have from the zinc and lead smelters.

For those who follow those kind of things this is the town where they held our cement hostage.

Wow, it seems like a lifetime ago…Well, it was a lifetime ago!

And now she walks!!!

Didn't I tell you that the girl was walking around as if she had been walking all of her life!

nice hat!

Chad oil in the news

I was just telling JVS that I never read stuff about oil companies in the news...Ok, I VERY RARELY read stuff about oil companies, but today I am making an exception.

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From: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/27/business/chad.php
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The president of Chad has said that the oil companies Chevron and Petronas must leave the country, alleging that they had refused to pay taxes. He said his country would assume responsibility for their oil production.

President Idriss Deby, speaking on state-run radio Saturday, gave the companies, which have been part of the African country's oil production consortium that is led by Exxon Mobil, 24 hours to start making plans to leave.
.............farther in the article.........
President Idriss Deby said Chad, which is setting up a national oil company, would take responsibility for the oil fields that the U.S. and Malaysian companies have overseen. The fields account for about 60 percent of the country's oil production.
..........a little bit farther.....................
Sabri Syed, a spokesman for the Kuala Lumpur-based Petroliam Nasional, commonly known as Petronas, said he could not immediately comment on Deby's announcement. Chevron said in a statement that it had complied with its tax obligations.
.........................at the end of the article.................
If Chevron and Petronas are evicted, Chad could seek help from China, which has taken an active interest in Africa.

This year, Chad broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and turned instead to China, a move that could help it sell its oil there. China is already the largest exporter of oil from Angola, and it exports oil from Sudan as well.
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Well here is a surprised this is somehow related to the Chinese need for more oil.
All while the US is busy farting around the Middle East and seems to have a very short term plan for its furtur energy needs China is thinking long terms.

I think a good advice for young people going to school would be : "learn to speak one of the Chinese languages"...Now I don't know enough to know which would be best but......

I wondered about the end of the amnesty in Algeria

I've been trying to find some sort of meaningful information about the current situation in Algeria. I wanted something about this "amnesty" ending at the end of the month, in a way that made sense for an under-informed and politically-ignorant like me. I wondered why we were ending up with increased security at the rig. Well, I know a little more and I hate to say but I can work myself up to being worried about it...Knowledge might be power but Ignorance is bliss... I know what I am going for!

Anyway, here it some of what I found:
-------------------------------------
August 15, 2006
Algeria: Islamists Of Salafist Group Increase Attacks
News fromAKI states that the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) has been increasing in ferocity, in the run-up to an amnesty issued by the Algerian government. The government has offered an amnesty to members of Islamic militant groups who hand themselves in to the authorities by August 31, provided these have not been involved in violent assaults. GSPC is the best known and most organised of the Islamist groups in the country, with cells also operating in Spain, Italy, France and Mauritania. It has links with Al Qaeda.
On Saturday (August 12), there were five bombs set for a military patrol in Maazula. Earlier there had been four bombs set off at al-Qadiriya, 50 miles west of ALgiers, the capital. Troops had been gathering in both regions, preparing for an offensive against the militants who are hiding out in the mountains.
The UK-based Arabic news source Asharq Alawsat stated that there will be a massive offensive against the militants next month in the mountain areas, where about 300 militants are based. GSPC have rejected the amnesty.
In June, the interior minister, Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, said that 200 Islamists had surrendered under an amnesty which had been approved in February. There were an estimated 800 militants which the government said could benefit from such an amnesty.
The February agreement also allowed for 2,200 Islamists to be freed, and allowed for compensation to be paid to victims of the violence, which began in 1992 when the army prevented a democratically elected Islamist regime from taking power. Since then thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died. Estimates of deaths range from 150,000 to 200,000.
On September 29 last year, a referendum was called by the government, to let the public decide whether or not to provide an amnesty. The public voted to approve the arrangement, but within hours of the official announcement of the poll results on October 1, the GSPC announced it would not abide with any agreement.
On a website, a spokesman for GSPC, Abou Mossab Abdelouadoud, whose real name is Abdelmalek Droukdel announced: "The Jihad will go on ... we have promised God to continue the Jihad and the combat."

in a totally different style

At the same time I am reading "the Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis.

Totally different. I've read it before and I unfortunately know that I do not like the last couple of volumes. I may stop as soon as I get to the part I don't like.

the Muqaddimah

I never mentioned: I found a copy of an abridged version of the Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun.
Some of you may remember that I wanted to read it after a recommendation by my friend Y. who lives in the Mzab.

The book was originally written in the 14th century, the first translation was published in 1956 (I think, or something like this), another abridged version came out in 1967 (or, again, something like this) and a new edition was just put out in 2005.
As luck would have it I first heard of it in 2006 so it wasn't THAT hard to find in London.

So far I am just at the introduction.

By the way the full title is "the Muqaddimah, an Introduction to History" and "muqaddimah" does mean "introduction".
From the introduction of " The Introduction" I suspect that it is one of those books best read in the original language, but considering how slowly I am learning modern arabic I think it best if I read it in english!!!!!

general update: all is fine

Ok, to answer requests for a general update.

I am back in Algeria and I should be here for 5 weeks or so. Obviously I am back at work...nothing special on this front... I should only be in Algeria for another 2 wells including this one, so about 5 months...Which of course make me want to reconcider my original thought of going home at the end of this well. I am starting to think that I should do everything I want to do in Algeria first...we'll see.

Before this I was in Calgary for 4 days and I managed to have more cups of coffe, early AND late lunches (once on the same day) than I thought was possible in such a short period of time but I did visit with pretty much everyone.
Chloe is walking as if she had always been walking. Next time I get home she probably will be talking. I remember the first time I got back and Brannan was talking, I couldn't help but feel really weird about it, so this should be a repeat of this weird feeling.
I saw Ben of course, with Sam, and got a chance to see for myself that those guys seem to actually be in what looks like a "real" relationship. But then of course what do I know about relationships!!!
I never did hook up with Dave who left my place a couple of days before I arrive...I think...
The place OF COURSE had been "redecorated" with Dave's and Ben's possessions which needed to be stored since those two guys are in between two places right now. I thought that I handled the "What the f**** is going on in my place" thing very well. I didn't even flip or anything. The place was clean and right there I was impressed. Also I was only home for a few days. But we all know how I LOVE to have people in my place and how I LOVE to have my place moved around!!!!!

Before that I was in Kenya for a month and in general terms I had a blast. I was absolutely fabulous in a "this is the farthest out thing I have done as far as new cultures are concerned" kind of a way. The Maasai are far out and it was a GREAT experience.

Before that I spent 5 days in London where I pretty much "lived it up", eating in nice restaurants, shopping in bookstores, going out, etc etc etc.....I totally did the "Life in London" thing. I even had a thought for a moment that I could live in London...Jeeze could it t even be a better place than Calgary!?! Surely not!
Let's be honest, if Calgary was not near the mountains it would be the last place on earth where you would want to be living...even with the mountains apparently it is the last place where quite a few of us want to be living hence the on going evacuation. As Lime said (I think it was Lime) "the last one out should turn the lights off".

Among all this of course there is now the issue of traveling, and especially traveling from Heathrow to Canada. It was amazingly easier than I first thought it was going to be. My bags were only open twice and my shampoo+tooth paste+hand cream could only be confiscated once. I went through only 5 metals detectors and my hand luggage was only search the same 5 times when I left Nairobi. In London I had nothing left that could be confiscated but I went through it all again since I was not allowed to have my bags follow me through and I had to go get them and put them through the system one more time. It was slow but I was prepared for it.

Here is a sign maybe it is the beginning of the end: in Heathrow I realized that it was only 9:30am AFTER I had ordered a double gin and tonic. The slight double take the young waitress did when I added "Oh, make it a double" was what prompt me to look at my watch.
Of course I am so mixed up with time that right now I cannot tell when I am supposed to sleep and I am going on an average of four hours per night...Well I am at work so who cares.

I did end up getting a REALLY sore back when in Calgary (too many hours sleeping sitting up, too many bad sits and not enough sit ups would do it to me) but my back is just about back to normal since at work I do have a piece of clean floor just large enough for me to do abs....I cannot stop, after a month without doing abs, my back always gives me major troubles. Of course my worst back problem happened on the day I was visiting Chloe with Steph right here to see it! wouldn't you just know it!

In summary all is fine! It is just more of the same but in a different pile.

Maasai beauty

This is V. with whom I lived. She has an important feature in terms of Maasai beauty. Her top teeth have a wide gap at the front. She was very proud of it and was quite proud of the fact that it occurred naturally, this is the way she was born.
Even without it she is really quite a beautiful woman.
Another thing to notice about her teeth are the two missing front bottom teeth. These were removed. I asked her about it- she spoke excellent english and as two "mature" women we had quite a few "very open" conversation about all kind of things.
Removing the two front bottom teeth is a maasai tradition it is also viewed as a beautiful improvement on the natural beauty of both men and women but she explained to me that originally it was done so that if somebody got very sick and passed out with locked jaws his family would still be able to pour water in their mouth so they wouldn't die.

I did have quite a few interesting conversation with her some of it I will not pass on since she was quite clear that she was only telling me because I was a "mature" woman and she trusted me not to tell.
She opened an email account when I was there and she can access it in the same village where I went to check my email when I was living with her. She just sent me a moving email mentioning how her house has changed and will never be the same since I was there....I can't help but wonder if it is really good.

Back to the maasai...in thoughts anyway

This is Daniel the moran.

The funny thing about names is that they would always tell me the name that was known as their "christian name" but they never used mine. They always called me by my Maasai name...I think they didn't actually like my so called "christian name"....but anyway that's something else.

His Maasai name is Ololoong. He is a really really nice kid...I should say nice guy. He wanted to learn english and he already knew a few words, and he wished he would go to school but you cannot be a moran (a traditional maasai warrior, which Daniel was brought up to be) and be a school boy.

I always though his shoes were cool made of car tires and not even trimmed to fit his feet.

Back in Algeria

I keep on talking about Kenya but I am in Algeria right now.

In a way it is good to be back. It is very hot and the evenings are absolutely beautiful. Funny I would have never thought that I was going to forget how elegant the dunes are in the evening light, but here you are, when I saw them again I realized that I had forgotten and it came back to me.
They are elegant...I cannot think of a better word to describe them.

One of the first thing the security guard on my rig told me when I arrived was that he had thought long and hard about it and had considered what I was doing during my holidays and how things had gone during the previous well and had decided that I would not need a guard when I go for walks. Also I have my international driver's licence so I can go driving alone...BUT here you are the amnesty the Algerian government had given to some terrorist group rather comes to an end on the 31st of this month (August) and the security is now reinforced to prepare for the possible consequences of that and I am back to square one: I need a guard if I want to go for a drive...I think I should still be able to swing walking on my own...Maybe!!!

Another big news: FCP will release this rig (the third rig) after the next well so this contract should be done in 5 to 6 months for me. I wonder where I will go next?!?

on a lighter note

Here is a photo of me (in maasai outfit that I HAD to wear on my last day in Maasailand) with E. (a really nice guy). Isn't it incredible how white I seem?
Honestly it looks awful.

One day in the matatu (it is a bus/taxi when in Nairobi, but in the country it is just a pick up truck driving around, without any particular schedule, until it is FULL and has enough fair money to go to town)...so one day in the matatu I was standing in the box of the pick up (standing people take less space) and there was a little girl sitting on the floor at my feet. She must have been around 3 or 4 years old. I was wearing cargo pants with a vertical zipper at the bottom of the leg. All while looking at me "discreetly" at the corner of her eye, she slowly unzipped my pant leg and started touching and rubbing my leg. When the white would just not come off, she started scratching and eventually got to licking her finger and trying to wash it off. I never said a thing so she would not get in trouble but I thought it was just hilarious.

Kibera part 4

OK, this is the last one...for now anyway. The truth is: there is no point going on about it.
BUT if you saw those people out of this picture in a ....let's say, in a grocery store, would you be able to tell that they live in a slum?
I sure couldn't.
Those people are incredible survivors. A good part of them go to work in Nairobi and come back to their home in Kibera at the end of the day.

Kibera part 3

Most of the streets of Kibera are like this. Somehow people who live there are clean. I don't know how they do it.
However one of the nurses I met who volunteers there said that all kids have pulmonary infection and of course a lot of worms and various parasites.

Kibera part 2

I thought I should do just a little bit more about Kibera, mostly so I can add a coupe of photos to this thing.
I want to get back to "The constant gardener" thing. If you've seen it you tell me if to you the place looked cleaner in the movie.
After the multimillion dollar movie to thank the community "Constant gardener" toilets were built around Kibera, some with showers. Honestly it seems like very little. For the people there is may be a lot but knowing how much money is made with movies like this (and I have not followed up how much money was made with this particular movie) it seems VERY little.

I guess it is better than nothing.

This is the woman I lived with with her oldest and youngest daughter.

When I have more time and more energy I'll have to tell you about the way the mother was cursed because her husband would not pay for the land he bought.
Lots of witchcraft in Maasailand, so she told me. I saw the man who used to be a doctor and a bush pilot and who now talks to himself and lives without a house because he was cursed.

they would often walk by the house in the morning.

washing day

these two kikuyu women are washing all the laundry in the puddles of rain water that gathered on top of the rock (yes basalt!).
Even if it gets windy the trees are so thorny (is this a word?) that the laundry is not about to fly anywhere.

master of disguise???

This guy is staying green on the red dirt so that everybody who knows that chameleons change colour to blend in will think that he is not a chameleon....smart!! ;-)

Kibera

Before going to Maasailand I had five days to wonder around. Of course I had landed in Nairobi and of course like all big cities it ultimately is just a city...though to be fair to say that some of the people who came to volunteer had a hard time getting used to it. Also this is where Kibera is..so maybe not a city like all cities...Kibera is the biggest slum in Africa and the second biggest slum in the world...it is HUGE...Not the kind of place where you want to go wearing flip-flops..there is no or very little underground "water evacuation" system and the little there is is often plugged by plastic bags...If you thought plastic bags were bad wait till you go to Kibera an you will think that they are one of the worst thing ever.
Dogs, pigs, goats etc of course roam somewhat free eating the garbage...what they can find in there after several groups of humans have gone through is a mystery to me.
Amazingly enough people who live there come out of it looking like the rest of the crowd.

If you saw the movie "the constant gardener" it is shot in Kibera...just in the movie it looks a lot cleaner than in reality. They must have cleaned the parts they needed for the movie.

living with the maasai

I am in Nairobi for a few hours mostly to get some money to buy some maasai jewelery so I thought I would blog briefly...again, sorry no photos though I started to take some pretty cool photos of maasai I live with.
I am living in a dirty floor corrugated iron shack with a maasai family. There is no electricity, we cook on the wood fire from the wood we gather and we drink the water that gathered in the low spots on the rocks after the rain....and no I have not been sick so far amazingly enough.
Of all the things I have done this has got the be the farthest out! It would be as if I was living in Algeria with a tuareg family.

I have just heard about the troubles in Heathrow and the absolutely no hand luggage on the plane thing. I am flying out of Kenya on the 16th just before midnight to go to Calgary and flying out of Calgary on the 19th (I think..or is it the 18th?) so I will barely have time to touch the ground. Once I have spare time in front of a computer I will go into the maassai thing....

And as an aside...I am actually living in the Great Rift Valley!

desert rat

I actually miss the desert.

Don't get me wrong Kenya is beautiful but all those trees and all this greenery is not where what I prefer.

I did see tea plantations and that was nice...here is a photo of one of them from the road with all the workers' houses all neatly in a row.

Having taken more than 500 pictures of the dunes I have taken less than 10 pictures of the greenery of Kenya...

I am just a desert rat that's all.

Nairobi

Well, I haven't blogged in a while. I arrived in Nairobi something like 5 or 6 days ago and I have have been busy with various stuff.
Nairobi turns out to be a fairly easy city to get around once you get the idea that waiting for buses at the bus stop is not the best way to handle it and it is best to go to a traffic light and jump on the bus when there is still space in it...It make people laugh to see a muzugu do it, but hey I don't want to have to wait for ever....I should say a "muzugu" is a white person...I was a"whitey" in Trinidad, now I am a "muzugu"..what ever!

As luck would have it (I guess I could have checked) July is the only month of winter in Kenya and after Algeria I found Nairobi pretty cold with drizzly rain and lows around 20C -I would guess I don't actually know the temperature.

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Maasailand and on August 22nd I have to be back at the rig. My plane ticket is scheduled to arrive in London on August 18th so it may all actually all work out with out a ticket change which would be amazing...If there is even a two day delay on the rig timing I will go to Calgary even just for 2 days...I'll see how it goes.

Here is a revelation to me: the problem with travelling a lot is that things do not seems that "exotic" anymore. Nairobi and driving to Nakuru and Kericho, even with the crazy african driving, do not seem that exotic.
The sister of the woman I am staying at said to me today "you look so comfortable here, you look like you are a Kenian. You look like you have been living here for years and years." I think they were a bit chocked to see me go down town Nairobi on my own on the first day and rent a car on the third day. Most of the volunteers are fairly young women so it is probably where the difference is.

I took the sister mentioned above to lunch today to a fairly nice coffee shop and sitting next to us was two french guys talking about traveling in Somalia and safety issues and places to be and guns and stuff like this I thought for a while that I was on the rig listening to the OLCs (security guys) going on about their war games....

One thing though on my driving trip I did see the Great Rift! How cool is that?!?

The photo is the young "house girl" cooking our evening meal in the modern apartment of Nairobi.